We’ve been bringing you quality content for the past three years and after writing over 2,000 articles about the latest video games, trailers, reviews and more we are asking our readers to help us stay afloat. With our redesign last month and the removal of advertisements we have opened up the site to an entirely new audience. Our editors have never made a dime from the site and it would be nice to have Broken Joysticks move to the next level.
Check out our patreon page right here. We’ve got a lot of plans for the site.but we can’t do it without you!
We are also offering rewards to backers of the site including your chance to have content published here, advertising space and backers only updates on upcoming content. It is my hope that we can raise enough funds to begin to have regular video content produced for the site.
Here’s a brief statement about the future of the site:
BrokenJoysticks.net has been a labour of love for the last three years. Since leaving IGN Entertainment I’ve worked unpaid building a platform that over 150,000 visitors come to monthly for reviews, opinion pieces and gaming news. I want to take this platform to the next level with original content, thought provoking editorials and boosting the voices of those who may have a unique take on games but I can’t do that on my own.
I’ve been handling everything from content production to technical website back-end stuff almost unaided for the past six months and it’s something that really requires more than one person. If this patreon is successful it will give me the financial resources to dedicate a lot more time to this project and start producing some truly amazing content as well as bring in additional talent to add that special touch that truly makes a site stand apart from the rest.
BrokenJoysticks.net has been a bit of a personal pet project for the past three years – providing me a platform to hone my writing skills while going through school. I am about to exit school in a months time and I would love to tackle BrokenJoysticks.net full time but I cannot do that alone. I don’t want to be reliant on ad revenue that can fluxuate widely from month to month. Instead I’m asking you, the readers to help get the site to the next level.
Kirk and I re-designed the site last month and I’d like to take the momentum from that and bring on a whole host of people who have unique views on videogames. I don’t want BrokenJoysticks to be just another PR regurgitation but instead a place for those who can analyze games through an intersectional lens to be heard. I truly believe that writers are an expert in their own experience and that the interaction that a player has with a game is truly unique to them.
As some of you may know I wrote for IGN Entertainment from 2007 – 2012 and at my height of employment I was the lead editor for TeamXbox.com. That job gave me the skills to be able to effectively plan daily content while maintaining a long term vision for a web project and I’d like to leverage some of those skills with BrokenJoysticks but I need some assistance. I also have an excellent relationship with some AAA publishers who in the past have given us review copies and preview offers. Unlike some of the major players in the games journalist industry I don’t have access to travel budgets or debug kits – in order for the site to advance I am asking you the readers for help!
There are risk inherent with this kind of venture. There is a chance that Broken Joysticks won’t take off in the way that I imagine but I won’t know that unless I try. This is truly an opportunity for me to make my dream of Broken Joysticks becoming something special!
Thank you
Rae Michelle Richards
